Thank you! -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robin Netherton Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2008 11:33 AM To: Historical Costume Subject: Re: [h-cost] The Home for Wayward Bad Costume Books
Zuzana Kraemerova wrote: > If you, however, made by chance such a list, post it here so that I know what not to buy... You cannot look inside books when you order them through amazon. I've already purchased quite a number of very disappointing books... My "bad" might be someone else's useful, particularly if that someone else is doing theatre costume. Also, my focus is on medieval dress, which may or may not be the same as your interest. Some of my favorite "bad" books cover many centuries and probably do a reasonably good job in the later ones, but not in medieval. (This is something that happens a lot with textbooks and survey books, particularly if the author is a specialist in, say, 18th or 19th century and writes the medieval section based on other books without knowing how to spot the errors.) On the other hand: I don't think anyone here would mind if you asked here about specific books you're thinking of buying, and then people who have the book can tell you whether it's useful for specific periods and purposes. FWIW, these are just some of the things on my own "bad" books shelf: - Bigelow, Fashion in History (my old college textbook -- just horrible) - Kohler, Dover reprint of 1928 edition (very good for some things, but unreliable in others) - Norris's Tudor volume, original 1938 and also the Dover reprint (I still need to get the medieval one) - Wilton, Book of Costume, 1986 Shep annotated reprint of 1846 edition - Ashdown, original 1910 edition (but now it's out in Dover reprint) - Gorsline, What People Wore, 1952 (not bad as a general overview for beginners, but it's all redrawings) - Lister, Costumes of Everyday Life, 1972 (OK for visual overview but repeats a lot of myths, and all redrawings) - Cremers-van der Does, Agony of Fashion, 1980 (agenda-heavy theory and bad information) - Sage, Study of Costume, 1926 (typical of its time, regurgitated errors) - Lester, Historic Costume, englarged fourth ed. 1956 (ditto), and 1961 edition of same, expanded for later periods by Kerr - Evans, Costume Throughout the Ages, 1930 (ditto) - Laver, Costume and Fashion, 1985 reprint of 1969 ed. (at least this one has some real artwork!) - Laver, Costume through the Ages, 1963, (all redrawings, no text to speak of) - Houston, Medieval Costume in England and France, 1996 Dover reprint of 1939 volume That's less than half of them. I have more like these, plus a number of non-English books, old coffee-table picture books, etc. Again, I only looked at the medieval/Renaiassance sections of these. Some of them might be very good for Victorian! But most of them are in general badly sourced and simply repeat assumptions from previous books. --Robin -- Robin Netherton Editor at Large [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (314) 439-1222 // fax: (314) 439-1666 Life is just a bowl of queries. _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
